The Hunter's Journal
by The Writer0214
Summary: My name is Jason Rufus Harker. Jayce for short. Last scion of the Harker family and descendant of Jonathan Harker, a vampire hunter. And this is my story. I was made aware of my heritage the day I packed for college...
1. Jayce Harker

**The Hunter's Journal**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Dracula. It has gone on into the public domain but has been recently re-claimed by the Stoker family. So Dracula belongs to Stoker yet again. No infringement intended.

**Author's Notes:** I was inspired by a fanfic I read about the Three Musketeers where descendants of the original musketeers (in present day) meet up, get to know each other, and pledge to take up their ancestors' role of protecting the innocent. This story will mostly be written in Jayce Harker's POV. Jayce Harker is a descendant of none other than Jonathan Harker of course.

My name is Jason Rufus Harker. Jayce for short. Last scion of the Harker family and last living descendant of Jonathan Harker, a vampire hunter. And this is my story. I was made aware of my heritage the day I packed for college. And it was then that I took on the heavy mantle of responsibility that had passed down from one Harker to the next all down the line, beginning from Quincy Harker who had been taught in the "art" of vampire hunting by his father Jonathan Harker. But apparently, Dad has forsaken that road and turned his back on hunting the undead. I guess you could say he didn't want to burden me with it. But destiny has a way of catching up with you. And try as my dad might, he could not shield me from what was to come—my destiny. My fate. Becoming the sworn enemy of Vlad Dracula's brood.

"Jayce? Jayce!" my dad called from downstairs, "Can you help me with these boxes? These are _your stuff_, for cryin' out loud!"

I couldn't hear him. Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Coldplay, and Nickelback were blaring from my player. I had it on loud.

"_Jason Rufus Harker!_" my dad roared, as he came up from behind and dragged me backward off my seat. I screamed. I cussed.

"You listen to me when I'm telling you something!"

"Well, looks like you won't be having a problem with that anymore, will you?" I said, getting up, "'Cause I'm packing!"

"No," my dad said, still seething, "We're packing, you're _sitting pretty_ over there, chatting with your friends and turning the speaker on loud!"

I took the offending box from him and trudged down the stairs. As I trudged angrily, I almost lost my balance, nearly tripping. Some of the stuff fell out and I realized that the box my dad was making me carry was filled not with my stuff but with things my mom thought of disposing during a yard sale for my college fund. If we sold enough, my money could last half the semester. I picked up the scattered pieces of junk and replaced them in the box. All except one. It was a leather journal. Dark brown, almost maroon in color. In gold were the initials J.H. It had a title on it. _Jonathan Harker's Journal (Also Known as the History of Dracula). Compiled by Abraham Stoker. With excerpts of letters from Prof. Van Helsing, etcetera._

It was probably my dad's last resort of hiding my heritage from me—to stamp out all trace of our family's hunting background. Curiosity took over my anger and I opened it. I read.

_**Jonathan Harker's Journal (Kept in shorthand)**_

_3 May. Bistritz. Left Munich at 8:35 P.M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible._

_The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule._

_We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians._

_I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don't know how I should be able to get on without it._

_Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country._

_I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe._

_I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey Maps ; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.  
In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it._

_I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)_

_I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then._

_I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga", and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata". (Mem., get recipe for this also.)_

_I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move._

I was about to go on reading but I heard my dad approach. I knew he didn't want me to see that. Why else would he include it in the list of things to sell?

"Jayce," he said, pausing at the top of the stairs, "Are you fi—?" He could not finish. He was pale. White. As if he had just seen a ghost.

"Dad," I said, confronting the issue head-on, "Who was Jonathan Harker?"

This was the moment of truth. He couldn't hide anything from me any longer. Seeing this, he cleared his throat and made his way down.

In a raspy voice, he said, "I owe you the truth, don't I? You want some lemonade?"

"I'd love some," I said. And following him into the kitchen, my heart raced with anticipation. I was to learn about my ancestor. And so, in that yellow-painted kitchen, Dad and I sat at the counter, drinking lemonades while he told me the complete history of Jonathan Harker and the bloodthirsty demon known as Count Dracula.

The beginning of my independent life was going to be a blast. I was excited. And I took up the mantle—the responsibility, the destiny, of being a vampire hunter. Nothing could distract me at the moment. Not my nerves, not Melissa Sass, not anything.


	2. Onward to Adventure

Jayce Harker's POV.

_I am a hunter._ That was all I could think of during my first week of school. I was distracted. I was distracted _even_ from Melissa. All I could think of was being a hunter. But since nothing strange had been going on, I was content on being just plain old me—Jayce Harker. Then I thought it would be rad to find out if any Jonathan Harker's friends still had any living descendants. And I set out to find them. How could I have known that my newfound friend and roommate Charlie Arnold has a very interesting history? As it turns out, he is the last living scion of the Seward family. We took classes together, and in our Sociology class, we had discussed family trees during one of the lectures. Our project was exactly that—family trees. Fortunately, I had already learned about my heritage so it was cake walk for me. But Charlie was struggling. He had no idea how to trace his—excuse the pun—bloodline. I helped him with it. We tried an online family tree website. He filled out all the information that was needed. Mother's name, Father's name. Mother's maiden name. Maternal grandparents. Paternal grandparents.

We weren't expecting the results to come out for several days but it took only a couple of hours. We were surprised. But here's the crux—it's unclear whether someone with the last name Arnold married into the family or the family had changed its last name from Seward to Arnold. Both were registered.

"I think our family changed our last name somewhere down the line," Charlie said, lighting his Marlboro Lights, "Though I'm not sure why the heck they would do that."

"Unless—" I said, thinking.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Charlie said, suspicion on his face.

"Unless it was because someone was after them!" I said, rummaging through my drawer for the journal, all the while, Charlie looking suspiciously at me.

"How in blazing hell would you know that?"

"Because our histories are connected, that's why," I said, leafing through the pages of the journal. I showed a passage to him that mentioned Seward. I made sure Jonathan Harker was also mentioned. I showed it to him and read it.

_**Mina Harker's Journal**_

_30 September.-When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary. Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris, Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre._

_The Professor said, "I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers." We all expressed assent, and he went on, "Then it were, I think, good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according._

_"There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have trained myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believed until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! See! I prove, I prove.' Alas! Had I known at first what now I know, nay, had I even guess at him, one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone, and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger, and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men, he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages, he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within his range, direct the elements, the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things, the rat, and the owl, and the bat, the moth, and the fox, and the wolf, he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where, and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much, it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win, and then where end we? Life is nothings, I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him, that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us forever are the gates of heaven shut, for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all, a blot on the face of God's sunshine, an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty, and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say no, but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow, but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?"_

"That doesn't prove anything," he said, brushing me off, "It might've been another guy named Dr. Seward."

"Dude—" was all I could say. I felt like strangling him! Here I was, excited about the prospect of uniting the descendants of Jonathan Harker's friends and forming a new generation of hunters ready to combat creatures of the night to protect their would-be victims before they ever got to them—and here he was, pouring water on my fire. Probably seeing the irritation written all over my face, he raised his hands in surrender and mumbled, "Sorry."

Ignoring this, I said, "Do you remember any family heirlooms—anything—that has been passed down from one generation to the next that might prove I'm right? Anything to connect the Seward on your family tree to the Seward in this journal." I was "grasping at straws" so-to-speak.

"Family heirlooms?" he said, thinking, "Well… In our family, it's passed down to the females. Though some properties have been given to the men as well. But it's usually the women."

I head-palmed myself mentally.

"Meaning…you don't have it."

"My sister does. She's back in Oklahoma."

_Great_, I thought.

"Maybe you could have her take a picture of it and email it to you?"

"That would work."

"What is it? That family heirloom?"

"It's a locket. With a picture of a beautiful woman inside it, they say. Never seen it opened though. Since I'm not female. They say it dates back to the Victorian era."

I raised an eyebrow in surprise, nodding. This was it! The thing that could help link our histories!

"I'll IM her."

"Alright, cool! Thanks! Ask her if she can take a picture of the front, the back, and the inside of the locket."

"Alright."

My heart was racing. The prospect of adventure was better than falling in love or pining for a has-been. Knowing Charlie Arnold was better than the day I fell for Melissa Sass. It seemed like there was an unknown force that was throwing us together. An unknown hand guiding us to each other—a descendant of one vampire hunter being guided toward a descendant of another. I could feel my palms growing clammy. This was it.


End file.
